We got the charts! The Beat is partnering with Prana Direct Market Solutions to present their monthly sales charts here. These charts are presented courtesy of Prana: Direct Market Solutions, Manage Comics, and Comic Shop Assistant and are based on data from 80,000+ consumers and 600+ stores in various markets. They reflect units sold not dollars.
It is previewed each week on the Comic Industry Insiders Live podcast and presented each Friday in the Prana Bullet newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
The Beat’s presenting the Prana bestseller lists is part of our ongoing effort to spotlight sales and other data that is of use to comics industry professionals and readers in making informed decisions.
With all that out of the way….let’s look at the charts!
DC topped the charts for May, with an 8 point lead over Marvel. We also reported on Prana’s April charts previously, which had a much narrower margin due to the Spider-Man/Superman crossover coming from Marvel. The Image share is up a bit, but Dynamite’s health market share is due to the huge debut for Ben 10#1, as you’ll see below:
To the surprise of no one, DC’s Absolute line continues to ABSOLUTELY CRUSH IT, with Batman, Green Arrow, Superman, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman all making the Top 10. The second month of Marvel’s Sider-Man/Superman crossover was the top Marvel title followed by Daredevil #42 – maybe getting a lift from the Daredevil streaming show? Ben 10 #1 is the number eight title for the month.
This chart includes order index numbers with Absolute Batman as the index. Notably, Scott Snyder posted on Twixxer that this issue sold more than half a million copies, so you can actually do a little number crunching if you wish….
You can see the top 400 titles in the below PDF (or open in browser here)
I’m going to refrain from a lot of commentary on this chart this time, but one thing that did catch my eye: Dorc #4 came in as the #40 title suggesting it continues to sell wall past its “speculator rush” first issue.
So there you have it – the dawn of a new era for sales charts, simple as it may be. As time goes on, we’ll be able to make comparative charts showing the ebb and flow of market shares and maybe even do deeper dives.
